


Together

by theramblinrose



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, First Night Together, From a request, bed hog, cyreese, cyreese family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:47:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25919071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theramblinrose/pseuds/theramblinrose
Summary: Cyreese, One shot.  ZA/AU.  Sometimes people have to accept that they're simply destined to be together.  Rated just in case/for some situations mentioned.
Relationships: Carol Peletier/Tyreese Williams
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	Together

AN: This is a little one shot with my “Cyreese family” from other one shots. These stories share the same universe (because I love to play in it), but aren’t really all tied together/chronological. It’s just a “background” that I like for these one shots. 

Anyway, this relates to a request that I had on Tumblr (I do take requests, by the way). I am not sure it’s 100% what they wanted, but this is what I was inspired to write by their prompt. They wanted Tyreese to find out Carol was a bed hog. 

I own nothing from The Walking Dead.

I hope that you enjoy! Let me know what you think! 

111111111111111111111111111111111111111

Tyreese carried the lamp with him as he walked through the house. Every night, without fail and, arguably, without good reason, he stepped out onto the porch and checked everything outside. He listened for the sound of Walkers growling at their fences—caught against the spikes they’d set to keep them at a distance—and he listened for any evidence that Walkers were closer than the protective barrier allowed them to be until they were put down and cleared in the morning.

He understood that, were Walkers to break through their fences, his little precaution of checking for them before bed would do them little good, but it seemed an instinctual need—it was the same as locking the door at night, perhaps. It was something left over and adapted from a life he’d once lived.

It was a reminder of the domesticity that he’d once practically wrapped around him like a blanket—a feeling that was returning to him now, more and more each day.

Tyreese would have never believed that, at what was surely the end of the world, or maybe just the world as they’d believed it to be, he would find happiness and peace again, but he had. His home was happy. It was a place of peace. And, though he could never get back those that had been lost, and though they had all suffered loss and pain, his home was a safe-haven for his family.

Tyreese’s family had been cobbled together from pieces of other broken families, and maybe it was wrong to find comfort there, but it seemed better that they should all live in the love that they now shared than in the sorrow of things they’d lost in the past.

There was so much love in the little farmhouse that it practically rained down from the ceiling beams, and every day, Tyreese felt, there was a little more love that filled the space.

When he was satisfied with the condition of the yard and the lock on the door, Tyreese carried the lamp with him through the house. He stopped outside one of the bedrooms. The door was cracked, as it always was. He pushed it gently open. It didn’t squeak since he’d oiled the hinges to keep from waking the room’s occupants with all the nocturnal comings and goings.

Carol checked them every night—sometimes more than once—and so did he. Likewise, they both often made the trip into the room to deal with any sort of nightmare that might arise. These days, after all, nightmares were to be expected.

Carol had already been in the room to say goodnight, offer kisses, and tuck blankets up to chins. That had been, easily, a couple of hours ago. As Tyreese rested the lamp on the dresser, he looked around the crowded room. Three girls slept in that room. It was nearly overflowing with furniture just to give them each a bed. Other rooms, in the sprawling farmhouse, lay empty. Yet the three girls insisted on being close to one another, and all of them slept better with company.

Maybe that was true of everyone, though.

In the hours since Carol had tucked them in to sleep, feet had found their way out from under blankets, Judith had somehow magically left her crib to end up in Lizzie’s bed, and stuffed animals had fallen to the floor. Tyreese made quick work of tucking legs and feet back under blankets, restoring stuffed animals to their proper places, and gently transferring the baby from her spot against the wall to the crib that was her proper bed.

Satisfied that all his girls—because he truly had begun to accept them as his own—would sleep peacefully for a while, Tyreese took the lamp and, leaving the door cracked behind him, left the little girls to their dream worlds.

Tyreese approached one of the empty and unused bedrooms where the door stood open. He stopped in the doorway and looked into the room. He didn’t know how many months they’d been in the farmhouse—though he gathered that quite a few had passed from watching the changes around them and from thinking about all the work they’d done—but the room had been his every night since they’d arrived.

Tonight, it was empty. It would remain empty, Tyreese hoped, until one of the girls felt brave enough to move out of the cramped room and claim it for their own. 

Tyreese’s whole body responded as he reached the room where he intended to spend the night. His heart beat a little faster in his chest. His stomach tightened. He opened the door and slipped inside, closing the door behind him.

It still seemed like he was stepping into a dream, and he wondered how long that feeling would last. Only an hour or so before, he’d been invited to the bed for the first time. For the first time, he’d been with the woman that he’d come to love, over the past few months, in every way possible. They had consummated their relationship to become something more than dear friends, helpmates, and the parents to three girls who needed them.

She was beautiful. She was one of the kindest and most gentle souls that Tyreese had ever known—even if she might insist that things she’d done to keep her family alive made her less than that. She had had a hard life, even before all of this, and she was, at times, still so skittish and shy.

But she was asleep, now. She was naked and vulnerable, in more ways than one, and she trusted him enough to sleep this soundly in his presence.

Tyreese left on the boxers that he’d stepped into to do his “check” of the house. He rested the lamp on the nightstand beside what he was claiming as his side of the bed—having let her choose her side by merit of where she was sleeping. He lifted the blanket, and he eased into bed, doing his best not to disturb her. Settling in, he blew out the lamp, and he closed his eyes, breathing in the scent of her in the room and among the sheets and blanket.

Tyreese had only begun to doze a little when there was stirring next to him. He woke and smiled to himself. Even one night ago, he could only lie alone in his bed and imagine what it might be like to sleep next to her—to hear her when she slept.

Carol moved and, with a soft sigh, came next to him, closer than she had been before. Tyreese eased his arm under her. He closed his eyes. His body buzzed with the same electricity that it had, some hours earlier, when she’d let him kiss her for the first time, and when his fingers had first touched her skin in more than the purely friendly manner to which he’d been restricted before.

He relaxed, content to have her resting with her body flush against his.

He began to drift, slipping into his dreams, when he found himself suddenly pulled back into reality. She had moved. She’d shifted in her sleep. With no physical possibility of getting closer to him, her arm had come across his chest and her leg had hooked up over his hip. 

Tyreese bit his lip. He willed himself not to think of her draped over him—what she must look like if he could see her in the darkness. He willed himself not to focus on the warmth of her skin or the fact that her very touch—or even the thought of her touch—had the ability to turn him on entirely. This wasn’t the time. It was time to sleep. The time for other things had passed. If he was lucky—very, very lucky—she might wake him in the morning with the sweet offer to take care of situations that were sure to arise then, but this was the time for sleeping.

Tyreese purposefully focused his mind on something else. He thought about the greenhouse they wanted to build. He thought about what materials they would need to find. He thought about how they might complete the project. He thought about the promise of fresh fruits and vegetables all year to go with the ones that Carol was meticulously canning and storing to feed them through the winter.

She was taking care of them. She would take care of all of them. That’s what she did.

And now, it seemed, she’d made it her mission to take care of Tyreese in every possible way that he could imagine.

He opened his eyes again. He could hear the steady breathing that told him she was sleeping. She moved in her sleep, though, and brushed her leg up and down his like she was responding to something in a dream. She shifted. There was no way for her to get closer to him. He was a wall, now, that blocked her progress toward the edge of the bed. She curled herself a bit more around him. She was practically on top of him now. 

This was too new. 

The permission to touch her after so much time watching her and, admittedly, dreaming of her and wanting her had only just been granted to Tyreese. It was too new for his body to ignore the fact that she was draped across him, naked, and he had only begun to taste what he’d craved for a while.

He didn’t want her to think he wasn’t a gentleman. He’d be horrified if she thought he was trying to take advantage. This was brand new, and he didn’t want to do anything at all that might damage it in some way or shatter it so that it was only something like a dream.

Tyreese sighed, eased himself over, and slid out of bed, practically slithering to the floor to escape her without waking her. 

His eyes had adjusted to the dark. He watched as she moved around, in her sleep, searching for something—that perfect spot in the bed, no doubt. He tucked the blanket around her and gently kissed her cheek. Then, he circled around to the other side of the bed, deciding that he’d simply chosen wrong when he’d chosen his side.

Tyreese lifted the blanket, slipped under the covers, and settled into place. He sighed, closed his eyes, and started to focus on things that would help him get to sleep—something relaxing. He imagined something as simple as the coming day. The girls would wake them early, but not too early. Carol was usually up, bumping around the house, before Judith was even awake. She would probably wake him before the girls even did, and he would milk one of their two cows—animals that were precious to them since they’d found them—for Judith’s breakfast.

Tyreese opened his eyes.

Carol found her way next to him. Her body was warm against him. His heart beat rapidly in his chest, but he slipped his arm under her, making himself more comfortable and allowing himself the simple pleasure of holding her. 

He’d only just drifted off, again, when he woke to the growing familiarity of Carol’s body wrapping around his. Her arm curled across his chest. Her leg hooked over his hip. Her breath blew lightly across his chest as she snuggled into him.

He tensed for a moment—worried about his body’s natural reaction, and worried about her reaction if she were to wake—and then he closed his eyes. He decided to trust that, perhaps, this was only her subconscious mind searching out what she wanted. If that were the case, which he chose to believe it was, she wouldn’t be offended by his subconscious mind merely responding, in its own way, that they were of the same mind.

At the end of the day—and all through the night—it seemed they wanted the same thing: to simply be together.


End file.
